Imagine you could go back to 1972 and invest a dollar in each company in the S&P 500. Which company would provide the largest return on your investment by 2002? Would it be GE? IBM? Intel? According to Money magazine and the analysis they initiated from Ned Davis Research, the answer is none of the above.1 The correct answer is Southwest Airlines. This is startling because the airline industry is notoriously bad at generating profits. Yet Southwest, led by Herb Kelleher, has consistently, year after year, produced amazing financial results.
